Archive for the ‘Idiotic Politicians’ Category

I explained to fellow Texans in a note last Friday why they shouldn’t support John Cornyn. Today comes further evidence. In an effort to further mislead Texans, and in an attempt to pretend his cowardice hadn’t been, this deceptive politician, this un-Texan, has posted a phony poll on his website asking a question based on a false premise. The question itself is a lie. He asks: “Do you agree with Senator Cornyn’s vote to De-fund Obamacare?” The truth is that he didn’t vote to de-fund Obamacare. Instead, he voted to permit Harry Reid and the Democrats to prevail. His poll is garbage.

This deception brands this man as a despicable liar. To explain for the readers not up to speed on the trick, John Cornyn joined with Democrats to close off debate on the House continuing resolution, permitting Harry Reid to amend it. After it had been amended, Cornyn then voted against it, along with twenty-four other sell-out Republicans. His phony poll on this webpage(see screen-capture of site below) asks if you agree with his vote to defund Obamacare. HE DIDN’T VOTE TO DEFUND OBAMACARE! He voted to permit Harry Reid and the Democrats to strip the Defunding language out of the bill, so that he could vote against that amendment and pretend to have voted against Obamacare. The cloture vote WAS the vote. Texans aren’t stupid, whatever Cornyn may think of us, and I suspect that as the truth spreads, Senator Cornyn will be heading home for good next fall.

Here’s the sleazy, dishonest poll on his website:

This Poll is a complete scam and fraud.

A number of Senators implied or directly accused Ted Cruz of trying to use the de-funding push to raise funds. Meanwhile, Cornyn’s phony poll is nothing less than an attempt to solicit email addresses and names so he can later solicit funds. More, since the poll is based on a lie, he’s shamelessly misleading voters both as to his actual position and to the effect of his votes. Classic “for it before against it” nonsense! Naturally, there’s no way to answer it without seeming to support him or Obama-care.

Let’s just get this out in the open: Senator Lindsey Graham(R-SC) is a liar. On Friday, when the Senate voted on whether to end debate on the House continuing resolution, that was the ball-game. Once the number of Senators needed to amend the bill had been reduced from sixty-one to fifty-one, Reid was free to strip the de-funding language from the bill. Senator Lindsey Graham(R-SC) was among the twenty-five Republican sell-outs who voted to permit Harry Reid to do so. In tweets and in an official news release, Senator Graham subsequently claimed to have voted against funding for Obama-care, when that can be true only if you ignore the first vote for cloture. The simple truth is that Lindsey Graham enabled Harry Reid to modify the bill. Now he claims to be for de-funding Obama-care. This half-truth is really a whole lie, but he will seek cover behind the latter vote. He’s busily telling his constituents that he’s opposed to Obama-care, and that he voted to de-fund it, but he’s lying through his teeth, using the procedural nuances of the United States Senate as political camouflage. Graham’s constituents need only ask him one direct question:

“Would Harry Reid have been able to amend the House continuing resolution without the support of Republicans, like you, Senator Graham?”

The true answer, indeed the only answer to this question is “no.” Anything else is an attempt to obfuscate, evade, and otherwise obscure the truth.

Here had been his tweet, just moments after the vote:

Lindsey Graham is a despicable liar. He’s hoping that the old formulation of being “for it before he was against it” will be enough to get him past his next re-election campaign, but voters of South Carolina should know that he’s lying to them, and that they now have an option. Graham is being challenged in the primaries, and it’s about time somebody holds his feet to the fire. What he’s done in the US Senate has been despicable. His lies, misrepresentations, and his unflagging support of statism have earned him an involuntary early retirement from the US Senate. It’s now up to the people of South Carolina to deliver it.

Lindsey Graham had hoped to do what twenty-four of his fellow Senate Republicans had hoped to do: Deceive voters with a shell-game. Vote for cloture, permitting the bill to be amended, followed by a vote against the amendment, as the means by which to pretend he had voted to de-fund Obama-care. The simple fact is what it is, and lying, duplicitous, back-stabbing politicians hope to trick voters with this sort of thing. It’s really just a slightly different formulation of John Kerry’s infamous “for it before I was against it” nonsense of the 2004 campaign. It’s always the same. Graham isn’t listening to the people of South Carolina, and he’s gambling that most of them aren’t paying much attention, or will be fooled by this procedural dodge.

He may get away with it if the people of South Carolina don’t take the time to examine what he’s done, but he won’t get away with it here: Senator Lindsey Graham is lying when he claims to have voted to de-fund Obama-care as his previous vote enabled Harry Reid to remove the de-funding language. This sort of behavior has become increasingly common from Senator Graham, who has supported going to war in Libya, and who has remained one of the key drivers in the Senate for the amnesty bill, leading many to refer to him simply as “Grahamnesty.” Whatever else he is, he’s neither honest, nor conservative, and it’s time he was sent home for good. Most politicians can be found to have told a whopper or two during their careers, but Graham along with the others who are pretending to have voted against funding Obama-care after enabling it to go forward are simply liars.Editor’s note: Senator Graham is being challenged in the GOP Senate primary by Nancy Mace, who is trying to overcome the Senator in a bid to replace him in the Senate. She may represent exactly what South Carolina needs in order to get beyond Graham’s duplicitous career in which he says one thing before voters in South Carolina, and another thing while in Washington DC. As you might guess, she has a few thoughts on Senator Graham, here.

It should come as no surprise to conservatives that we’re being shafted on virtually every issue by some gang-of-eight or other assembly of Republicans who simply will not stand up to the Democrats. Normally, I don’t spend much time guessing at their motives, instead tending to examine the results of their positions. I don’t necessarily assume that our GOP establishment opponents are evil, but merely misguided. This view has been changing, because the more closely I examine their positions, the more baffled I become by any logical standard of measurement. The problem is that discovering their motive has become increasingly important to the prospect of defeating them. If we understood what it is that they’re after, we might find it somewhat easier to beat them or make them irrelevant. Sadly, I have begun to conclude that my worst fears may be true. The GOP’s establishment wing clearly runs the show, leading us to perpetual defeat. It is time to ask ourselves why by considering the issues on which they’ve abandoned conservatism.

My first question must go to folks like Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan(R-WI) on the issue of immigration reform: “Are you stupid?” I know this will seem a bit blunt to some people, but it’s a sincere question. The Senate Gang-of-Tr8ors bill offers to create between twelve and thirty million new citizens over the coming decade. We already know that the overwhelming majority of them will be Latinos of Mexican origin, and that their tendency is to vote for the Democrats by a seven-to-two ratio or worse, once they become eligible. What sort of complete and utter moron must one be to believe this could in any way redound to the benefit of the Republican party, conservatism, or even our nation’s future? Given the stance of Ryan and his cohorts, we are left to conclude that there can be only two things driving their position. Either they are among the most pathetically irrational and moronic persons, or they must know what will happen and wish to gain that result. There are no alternatives.

On the issue of the budget, the establishment Republicans insist that we must support Paul Ryan’s pathetic, tinkering attempt at reform, even though it establishes no concrete foundation of reform, instead promising to reduce the rate of growth of the deficit, but not arresting it entirely, never mind addressing the mounting debt. More, when you call members of the House or Senate to demand an explanation as to how the official National Debt count has been stuck for two months running, despite the fact that the government is taking on more debt, none of the Republican members seem all too interested in finding an explanation. Once again, we are confronted with the question: Are these people simply oblivious? Why aren’t they screaming at the top of their lungs? Here you have an administration that is exceeding the statutory debt limit by billions of dollars, and in order to disguise it, they’ve stopped the debt clock. Other than the frozen clock, they’ve continued business as usual. What good is a sequestration of funds? What good is a debt limit fight if the guys who must engage have already surrendered? Do you believe for one moment that Paul Ryan or the rest of the RINO phalanx in Washington DC is unaware? Do you believe they are so incompetent as to miss the significance of these Treasury Department actions? It is either true that they are so incompetent that we must for the good of the nation replace them, or they are willing to let Obama do what he’s doing, in which case we must be rid of them for the same reason.

I have said many times that it doesn’t really matter whether they’re simply foolish or guilty of collusion, but I’ve come to change my view on this. One can’t forgive negligence born of incompetence, but one must punish willful misdeeds more harshly as a warning to other would-be scoff-laws. It’s a matter of intent. Are the establishment Republicans in Washington DC, under the “leadership” of John Boehner(R-OH,) Mitch McConnell(R-OH,) and all the other big-government Republicans simply guilty of foolishness and incompetence, or is their behavior evidence of malice? This is the ugly question we must ask ourselves, because we may choose one or the other alternative postulate, but never both.

It’s now clear to me that the Republican party as expressed by its “leaders” in Washington DC is in open collusion with the Democrats and President Obama. There is no other way to explain their willingness to go along, knowing what the results will be. On Benghazi, they help the Democrats obfuscate, and on the IRS scandal, they gum up the works, but on legislative matters of significance, they are lending an assist to Democrats: On immigration, the budget and debt ceiling, the funding of Obama-care, and a range of somewhat less significant issues at the moment, they are not merely capitulating, but assisting the Democrats. They must be either the largest collection of stupid people in any government on the planet, or they intend the results their efforts are obtaining. It cannot be both.

A conservative must now ask with pointed clarity: Does it matter if John Boehner or some lunatic Democrat wins his seat in 2014? Does it matter in the least if Lamar Alexander or some Tennessee Democrat wins that Senate seat in 2014? The answer is yes: The prospective Democrat in either case is at least being honest about his or her intentions, in the main, at least to the degree that by running as Democrats, we voters may make an accurate guess about what sort of legislation will result. This cannot be said of the RINOs in the GOP. By running as Republicans, there has been at least the implicit idea that such candidates will oppose statism, but that simply hasn’t been the case. If ever there had been a time in American history when the willingness of voters to be true to themselves was the most critical aspect of their political activism and engagement, now must be that time. We must admit in the open what we have long suspected: The establishment wing of the GOP consists of traitors to every value and ideal we hold sacred, because they are in open collusion with those who are actively seeking the destruction of our country.

Readers of this site are often treated to predictions of doom and gloom; reports of misdeeds and malfeasance; foreshadowing of despair and sorrow, but on this day, we ought to take a moment to quietly celebrate the fact that despite all the treachery aligned against her, Justice still succeeds in America precisely because there are so many good and diligent people still among us. George Zimmerman was acquitted Saturday night on all charges, and whatever we may individually think of the case and Mr. Zimmerman, for the jury to have arrived at a “not guilty” verdict speaks to the fact that despite all the wrenches thrown with malice into the gears of the ordinary legal process in this case, six average Americans were able to arrive at a verdict that went against every bias that might well have stymied Justice among folk of lesser character. Threats of violence notwithstanding, outrageous statements by reporters and lawyers in media no more fruitful, these six jurors dared to decide the case on the basis of its merits. They upheld the rule of law in the face of a myriad of reasons that might have stopped them, save only one: They took their duty as jurors seriously, and decided the case with the full measure of diligence it deserved. This ought to tell us at least one thing about America that in our constant depression over the country’s state that we must not forget: It isn’t over yet.

Justice still prevails in America, and that ought to be reason enough to celebrate. I do not intend here to gloat about the particular outcome, but instead hope to explain to you why this should give heart to every American of good will. Even with the grim spectacle of Florida Attorney Angela Cory’s bizarre and hateful attempt to retry the case in the press, having lost it only moments before, justice did prevail. I know this because had there been even a sliver of evidence to support the prosecutors’ case against George Zimmerman, he would have been found guilty because the pressure being placed on this jury by the entire media spectacle must have been obnoxious. For them to return a “not guilty” can only mean that despite all the ploys of the prosecution, and the tampering of the judge, even with all the media attention on the courtroom, these six women sat down to deliberate the case and came out with a verdict that all the pressure in the world made into the most difficult of them, except that in the end, they could not adhere to anything but the law and the evidence. It is a marvel in this age of politicizing everything. Whatever they may have felt about George Zimmerman at the conclusion of this show trial, they managed to see through it to justice.

Based on the testimony and evidence I had seen replayed or recounted in reports, it was difficult to imagine how they would convict him under the “reasonable doubt” standard. In my view, the case put on by prosecutors with respect to the evidence and the testimony of witnesses was largely exculpatory, irrespective of all the emotion the prosecutors poured into the mix in a shameless attempt at misdirection. The fact that this had been a political trial instigated by political hacks insistent upon pandering did not overwhelm the good sense of the jurors and their ability to reasonably apply the law to the case laid out before them. In this country, with the vast leftwing conspiracy of goons all agitating in one direction, these six jurors sent an unimpeachable message by their verdict that must serve as a searing reproach to all those who sought to tamper with the process: Justice still works in America.

It will be tempting to dismiss this instance in which justice had prevailed as an aberration, but the fact is that in most cases, in most places, at most times around the country, justice prevails when the stakes are high. There will always be those infamous cases that prove the contrary thesis, but even at this late date, and perhaps more importantly because of this nation’s creeping devolution, it is all the more heartening to see the law more faithfully observed and measured by six ordinary Floridians than by five of nine Supreme Court justices. Consider this while insisting that we cannot save the country. Do you believe it will be saved by some grand stroke? If America is to be saved, it will have been because ordinary Americans in cases big and small took a stand on the side of justice. Not “racial justice.” Not “environmental justice.” Not “social justice.” Instead, plain, old-fashioned, uncorrupted, scales-and-sword with blind-fold Justice will be the thing that can save our nation. It had been six ordinary women who were willing to wear the blind-folds and weigh with the scruples of saints and the fine precision of jewelers, willing only to raise their sword if their measuring had demanded it.

I recognize that on this morning, there exists some sizable proportion of the American populace who remain unsatisfied with this result, but I beg them to accept it as a first step back toward the ideals that had been our American dream even when we have not always achieved it. I also offer a cautionary note, because what this verdict means and should be understood to describe is a country in which it is still quite normal for ordinary citizens to rise to the occasion and mete out justice as the situation demands. For those who would take their dissatisfaction violently into the streets, they should know that there will be courtrooms in their futures too, and with any luck, juries that will be equally diligent when sitting in judgment.

There are those who ask me how I can possess any glimmer of hope for this country, but I contend that the evidence is all around us, even if it isn’t writ large on television screens. It has ever been the diligence and forthright character of ordinary Americans pressed by circumstance into civic duty who have given me such hope as I still possess, and on Saturday in Florida, six of them did not disappoint. America is not over.

Barack Obama promised fundamental transformation, and with the help of his own party, as well as a lengthy list of traitorous, sell-out vermin in the Republican Party, he’s having an easy time of it. The Corker-Hoeven amendment to be voted on Monday will not have been read by anyone as the vote is tallied, but it constitutes a re-write of the bill almost in its entirety. The details of the original bill and the amendment constitute more than merely awful legislation, to the extent all the provisions are known, and it is the intention of Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell along with a legion of co-conspirators in both parties to put this bill over on the American people before they can know what has hit them. If this bill passes in any form, it will have been the final legal nail in the coffin of our Republic. Swept aside will have been every possible obstacle to the overthrow of constitutional government in the United States of America, by virtually any interested foreign power. This is only possible because a large segment of the GOP has decided to be on the side they believe will win. It’s that simple: America will be ruined with Republican assistance.

There is a common temptation to think of the immigration reform bill as pertaining to people who have crept into our country from Mexico and points South. I would ask my fellow Americans to reconsider this assumption carefully, because there is no language in this law that limits the benefits of this law to only those hailing from Mexico. This law would pertain to Mohammed Atta, or other terrorist elements who overstayed visas. This law will effectively throw our nation wide-open to a world full of people not all of whom love us or will come here merely for economic opportunities. This bill will create a new class of residents who may lawfully remain in the United States despite having violated our laws. There will be no fear of deportation. There will be no further purpose for ICE agents, except as tax collectors. This is a statist pipe-dream come true.

Barack Obama is leading the overthrow of our form of government, our culture, and our economy while people wonder whether Nik Wallenda will survive his walk on a cable spanning the Grand Canyon. Worst of all, the party elected to stand in opposition to all of this is lending an assist, while far too many of the American people are oblivious to what is being done. For me, this is the most troubling aspect, because rather than zealously guarding their liberties and relative prosperity, a huge swath of America won’t know what will have been done until there is virtually no peaceable means remaining by which to reverse it.

I do not mean here to whine, because I have a small but loyal readership, and most who read these postings will appreciate them, but the fact that it is such a small sliver(relatively) of the overall population bothers me, not because they don’t read this site, but because so many don’t read anything of consequence to the future of our country. I am mortified when I consider that some times, my biggest-drawing posts on a given day are things I wrote weeks or months, and in a few cases more than a year before that only then find their way into a bit of attention from a wider audience. Short of stripping naked and running down the street ablaze(and nobody wants to see that,) I don’t know what more we conservatives can do to pierce the veil of indifference that seems to have settled over this country.

Monday is the day on which we need to raise unholy Hell over this immigration bill. I have my call list, and I’m starting early. The sun will scarcely be up by the time I begin calling, and this is important enough that I intend to set aside several hours for this task. These politicians don’t view our lives as important, because in their view, we’re simply cogs in a machine from which they profit tremendously. It’s time to get a little fury in our voices and let them know that they’re not so special that we can’t send them home. Sure, they’re reorganizing this country into a statist, third-world slave-pit, but nowhere is it written that we must accept it, or even go along quietly. It’s time to make some noise, for the love of all you cherish. They may overthrow us yet, but we mustn’t make it easy for them. Our only choice is to fight or to fold, and for all I hold dear, I will fight.

This morning, Senator John McCain(RINO-AZ) made an impassioned speech on behalf of the Amnesty bill. Senator McCain is catching Hell as you continue to hammer him and his “gang-of-eight” cohorts. He still wants this bill in the worst way, but this clip is evidence of the effect you’re having:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB7VOWAo3DI]

Sorry Johnny, we want our country. There won’t be any amnesty for you, either…

It should be incomprehensible that politicians who have helped to create our immigration woes would seize on the opportunity of the Boston attack to pimp their latest bad idea, but that’s precisely what happened on Friday night. Worried that some Americans might catch on to the fact that the bombers in the Boston Marathon case were immigrants legally in this country, and fearing that these inevitable disclosures would damage their efforts at making immigration even easier, Senators John McCain(anti-Republican, AZ) and Lindsey Graham(anti-Republican, SC) made the case that the case for pending legislation on “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” was now more important than ever. Suspect number two wasn’t yet in custody when the RINO twins issued a joint bit of dishonest propaganda:

In the wake of this week’s terrorist attack in Boston, some have already suggested that the circumstances of this terrible tragedy are justification for delaying or stopping entirely the effort for comprehensive immigration reform.

In fact the opposite is true: Immigration reform will strengthen our nation’s security by helping us identify exactly who has entered our country and who has left – a basic function of government that our broken immigration system is incapable of accomplishing today. The status quo is unacceptable.

We have 11 million people living in the shadows, which leaves this nation vulnerable to a myriad of threats. That is all the more reason why comprehensive immigration reform is so essential.

By modernizing our system of legal immigration, identifying and conducting background checks on people here illegally, and finally securing our border, we will make America more secure.

Senators McRINO and Grahamnesty should be ashamed, but since they’re opportunists who don’t give a damn about the American people, they’ve instead made what must be regarded as a maniacally pompous statement aimed at pushing their “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” agenda forward despite all the facts that make plain the absurdities of their ideas.

These two bombers weren’t “living in the shadows.” They were right there, in the open, and at least one of them had a previous conviction for domestic violence. Why was he still in the country? Are we to believe the preposterous assertion that the elder Tsarnaev brother would have been deported under CIR? No way. Their mother is a convicted thief, and she still resides in the United States. Why?

The immigration reform legislation being pushed by these two sell-outs won’t do a thing to lessen the problem, but instead threatens to worsen the problem. The two senators allege that we have 11 million people “living in the shadows,” but has either considered that some significant proportion of them would just as soon remain in the murky darkness on the fringes of our society? To pretend that every immigrant is just a hard-working American-in-waiting is a preposterous absurdity. The evidence tells a different story, and the fact is that among the 11-20 million illegal aliens now in the United States, there is a significant number who are evading justice in their home country, or who have already committed serious crimes in this country.

Given his service record, many are willing to give Senator McCain a pass, but I think that service record means he should be more cognizant than his colleagues in the Senate regarding the security interests of the American people. Instead, he and his sidekick from South Carolina are waging an immoral war against the American people, siding with the likes of Barack Obama who will preside over any law these two push through the Senate. Our current president refuses to enforce the immigration laws as exist right now, but we’re to believe that he will magically change his mind should the Comprehensive Immigration Reform proposals of these two senators be enacted? It’s preposterous on its face.

I am more than a little fatigued with Washington DC establishment politicians urinating on our heads while telling us it’s merely raining. Senators McCain and Graham should be ashamed of this, but the fact is that they have no discernible shame, otherwise they would retire and make way for candidates who are willing to fight against Obama’s agenda, rather than propping it up and supporting it. The American people express what should be a simple demand: Secure the border first. Deport illegals and resident aliens who commit crimes, even minor ones, because these should serve as warnings about worse things to come. Instead, these two Senators are more concerned with pushing an agenda that is distinctly un-American than with protecting the American people. They don’t deserve the title “Senator.”

In the wake of this bombing, what is clear is that the war against America is being waged by radicals from all over the world, and it goes on apace, while the war against Americans being waged by Washington insiders like McCain and Graham continues despite all evidence against their shoddy proposals. Rather than expressing their concerns for the people whose lives were wrecked or destroyed in Boston this week, these two Senators were more interested in seeing to it that their pet legislation would not be derailed. Senator McCain wants to disarm you, as demonstrated by his vote on the failed gun bill. Now he wants to invite in more people, and legalize some who are already here, some of whom may be out to kill you. Do the math. “Despicable” and “shameful” are the only words that cross my mind when I think of these two senators, and particularly Senator McCain, whose service to the nation ought to have meant that he could be trusted to know better.

As Mark Levin explained, under federal law, those convicted of domestic violence lose their right to keep and bear arms. You may be thinking that this doesn’t apply to you, but I would urge you to reconsider. If the Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act(S.47) passes the House, as Eric Cantor is currently twisting Republican arms to do, “unpleasant speech” will be considered a federal crime qualifying as domestic violence. Are you still more concerned about the alleged threat against Bob Woodward? You see, the Senate version of the bill now includes a number of chilling provisions that would turn mundane arguments among couples into the grounds for the loss of one’s second Amendment rights. If you think this is a joke, or that I’m going over-the-top, I would ask you to consider what sort of jurisdiction the Federal government has in domestic violence anyway. Isn’t this an issue for states and local governments? Federalism? Tenth Amendment? Conservatives? Anybody? The only reason to make this sort of law on the federal level is to use it as a vehicle for its legislative side-effects. You are going to be disarmed, and this will be the vehicle.

One might wonder why Republicans like Eric Cantor would go along with such monstrous, probably extra-constitutional legislation, but the answer remains what it has been since Boehner and Cantor took over leadership: They’re not on our side. They would be only too happy to ban weapons, but they know they’ll get clobbered in 2014 if they go that direction, so instead, they’re looking for the back door to registration and eventual confiscation. The Violence Against Women Act is the path to taking everybody’s guns, because it even changes the burden of proof effectively from the accuser to the accused. That’s right, under this act, if you are accused, it will be nearly impossible to avoid being found guilty because almost anything remotely unpleasant can be considered as “abuse” or “violence.” So much for “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

Perhaps as insidiously, it adds more classes of people to the legislation, including homosexuals, transgendered, and men too, begging the question as to why it is labeled “Violence Against Women Act.” The answer is clear, however, considering this bill constitutes a continuation of the Obama strategy of denouncing Republicans’ “War Against Women.” As RedState’s Daniel Horowitz observes, it’s impossible to see where this is anything but a social engineering package. With the added implications for gun ownership, it becomes an even darker tool. Again, as Horowitz concludes:

“Yes, they should vote against this ridiculous rule, which is politically motivated. There is no reason they should be considering this bill anyway. Why is a GOP-controlled House taking up leftist legislation instead of bills to block grant Medicaid, repeal ethanol mandates, or reform the Fed? Even if they choose to bring up bad legislation, they should do so under an open amendment process.”

Ladies and gentlemen, such legislation is an abomination to our constitution, and while we may be upset about threats against Bob Woodward emanating from this despicable White House, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that the threat against Woodward is just one more small token of Obama’s lack of esteem. The Violence Against Women Act should be called the Violence Against the Constitution Act, because it offers to set aside the whole notion of “innocent until proven guilty,” as well as expanding the meaning of “violence” to include “unpleasant words.” If you value your liberty, you must act to stop this bill by calling your House members, and calling Eric Cantor’s office, though I’d suggest the former will do more good. Nevertheless, make those calls. It’s such a despicable situation that Mark Levin announced a “Levin Surge,” and to the degree I am able, let me add my outcry to his: We must stop this act, because it will be used to further destroy the constitution while setting you up for easy removal of your Second Amendment rights. The worst threat this day isn’t the one aimed at Bob Woodward, or even by Cantor against conservatives in the House Republican caucus, but instead the one aimed most squarely at you.

I have read the announcement made by Magpul Industries on February 15th via Facebook, and I wish to discuss it with you further. I realize that you do not wish to leave the state of Colorado, and that if the state enacts laws making your products illegal for purchase by customers in your state, as a matter of moral and philosophical consistency, your hand will have been forced, and that you will uproot your company and move it to another state more amenable to your enterprise. This is a commendable stance, and you are to be credited for taking it, as far too many people in business see only dollar signs but not the underlying principles that support their existence. I hope you are not forced to move Magpul, but if you find that you must, I’d like to offer you a new home where your company and its purpose are welcome.

Recently, my Governor went on a tour of California trying to drum up businesses to move to the Lone Star State, and while it seems he failed to find any takers, let me suggest to you that it is because he was looking in the wrong place. The problem with his approach was that he looked in a particular geographic location, but I think if Governor Perry had wanted more success, he would have looked to business owners who had arrived in a philosophical place, much like the one in which it seems you have arrived. Amoral and immoral lawmakers of the sort who would impose such legislation on the people of Colorado(or any state) help to create an environment in which men and women of good will are unable to continue in good conscience in their present circumstance. If such a condition arises anywhere, it constitutes the precise destination to which our Governor(or any Governor) should turn to look for businesses to bring to their states.

On that basis, let me make you an offer your conscience may find difficult to refuse. If the laws of Colorado are changed so as to make it unsuitable for Magpul Industries, I would very much like to see your company relocate to our state. More, I would suggest to you that within the vast expanses of Texas, there are particular places that would suit your company more than others, and that would offer the moral climate in which your operation would likely feel at home. Specifically, I would offer you Central Texas, and most specifically, Bell County. Bell County is home to Fort Hood, the U.S. Army post that is the home of III Corps, and it offers a variety of advantages to your operation should you be compelled to choose out of sad necessity to relocate your company.

Our largest two cities are Killeen and Temple, respectively, and our County seat is Belton. Temple and Belton are located directly on the I-35 corridor, while Killeen and Harker Heights, further west in the county, have access to I-35 via US-190, an improved four-lane, divided highway. Temple is home to a number of companies large and small, and it also feature Scott&White Hospital, as well as a Veterans’ Administration hospital both of which serve this region. Our climate is necessarily warm, but there are few work stoppages due to winter weather, and we are generally far enough inland from the coast that direct impact from hurricanes is minimized.

More importantly to your operation, we have many qualified prospective employees, many of them veterans skilled in the use of products you manufacture. Because we are home to Fort Hood, we have many veterans who decide to settle here(as I did more than two decades ago,) because Texas is a place of liberty and opportunity. More, Central Texas is a place that has a deep and abiding understanding of the moral purpose of self-defense, and its residents are quite aware of all the reasons your products are vitally important to a free people. So many of our residents having served in the Army, or having had loved ones who served, there is a reverence in our community for the Constitution, and for all it implies about limited government.

Taxation is relatively low here, and you would find a locale happy to embrace your business. Texas has fared better than many states under our current economic conditions, but as you are doubtless aware, no place has been entirely immune to the economic predations of big government except perhaps Washington DC. Due to this grim reality, there exists here no small number of potential employees who have skills of the sort for which you would be looking should relocation become necessary. We have shipping facilities and probably the sort of facilities you would need in order to set up operations here, and I offer you also this: Texas must be among the larger of your company’s customer states, so that a large share of the products you manufacture would actually be purchased and used by the people in whose state your company would then reside.

Having now shamelessly offered you my home state, and indeed my adopted home county as a new locale for your operations, let me explain to you that it is precisely because I am proud of our little slice of a big state that makes me certain about its inherent suitability to your enterprise. While you go about the business of giving your customers an “unfair advantage,” I would assert that Central Texas would provide your company a similar competitive advantage in a market segment full of innovators with whom you compete for business. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of location, but it is similarly difficult to overstate the importance of a welcoming community that will embrace a company’s philosophy and purpose. I realize that that such a decision would not be taken lightly, so please permit me also to state for the record that I understand a good deal about the torturous struggle you are enduring that would lead you to consider relocating your company.

I realize that you will have been beset by thousands or millions of such offers in the wake of your company’s announcement. I also realize that relocating is in fact the last thing on Earth you would choose, but for the circumstances that may arise now, well beyond your control. It is easy for those of us who would be the beneficiary of your prospective relocation to offer our respective areas, but I realize that it is much more a matter of heart-rending consideration for you, who must calculate the costs not only of moving a business entity, but of the dislocation and hardship that would attend those who work for you now, who might well not be able to relocate with you. I understand what it is to have one’s company undermined by stupid laws, and to have one’s dreams shattered by bureaucrats. I realize that much more is at stake here than simply picking up and moving a company. You would be moving the site of your great aspirations at the point of lawmakers’ pens.

The truth is that I hope sincerely that your fight in Colorado for rational law is victorious, and that you are able to overwhelm the proponents of bad law so that Colorado can remain the home of Magpul Industries. I also understand why you are making your stand, and why the demands of logical consistency will demand that you leave Colorado, should the legislature and Governor of your state act with such tempestuous reflexes against objects that are no more the source of violence than a pillow used to suffocate a sleeping victim. Objects don’t commit murder. Lawfully manufactured and distributed products do not commit murder. Only people commit crimes. Those politicians who use objects or products as surrogates for their alleged anger against criminals instead create a whole new class of victims, comprised of legally disarmed people who have not the ability to oppose in force the attackers who do not abide by the very laws that restrain their victims. I believe we should consider such politicians criminals by proxy.

I wish you well, both in your business, and in your life’s pursuits, and also to all of your employees who have with you provided so many Americans such excellent products. You should be proud of the company you have built, and all the things you have made that continue to revolutionize your market niche. I know that wherever you and your company land, you will continue to be leaders in innovation and reliability, and I want to thank you in advance for all you will yet do, not only for your customers, but on behalf of a people who understand the necessity of the right to keep and bear arms, and why taking a stand in favor of that right is essential not only to the future of your company, but indeed, the entire country.

This story is a perfect example of what I explained when I wrote The Return of the Wall last month. In that case, it was a matter of French politicians seeking to punish Gerard Depardieu among other wealthy citizens for their willingness to move out of country to avoid the criminally high taxes their newly-elected hard-core socialist government is trying to inflict. Now, as Breitbart is reporting, New Hampshire’s 3rd Legislative District Representative Cynthia Chase has gone to the blogosphere to urge her fellow lawmakers to make the State famous for the slogan “Live Free or Die” an unwelcoming environment to so-called “Free-Staters,” people who are moving to New Hampshire specifically with the goal in mind of converting it into a conservative or libertarian bastion. The Free State Project has been around for some time, but lately, it’s gotten large enough to garner attention from lawmakers, and Democrats like Rep. Chase aren’t very happy about their presence. She intends to use the law to restrict freedoms in the state, and thereby cause Free-Staters to rethink moving to New Hampshire. Just as the Soviet Union’s wall between East and West served the dual purposes of imprisoning their people, while simultaneously keeping out the influences of freedom, Rep. Chase is urging her fellow legislators to help restrict the freedoms of conservatives to deter them from moving to New Hampshire.

According to Breitbart, Rep. Chase wrote the following in a blog post on the 21st of December:

“In the opinion of this Democrat, Free Staters are the single biggest threat the state is facing today. There is, legally, nothing we can do to prevent them from moving here to take over the state, which is their openly stated goal. In this country you can move anywhere you choose and they have that same right. What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming that some will choose not to come, and some may actually leave. One way is to pass measures that will restrict the ‘freedoms’ that they think they will find here. Another is to shine the bright light of publicity on who they are and why they are coming.”

This is incredible, but reading the full text of her post, it’s clear that Rep. Chase is a typical leftist who opposes freedom. She actually dares to quote Martin Luther King Jr. at the conclusion of her post, in which she asserts that the Free-Staters are “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” without offering the first bit of justification for her conclusions. She made a vague reference to “their website” without linking to it or offering the first inkling of what it is that she’s referencing as a threat to the state of New Hampshire.

Legislators and activists like Rep. Chase are the reason it is so easy to believe the most absurd statements attributed to lefties. When one realizes that she is actually hostile to people moving to her state because they may by sheer numbers change the base polity of the state, I wonder what her stance is on making our Southern border less permeable. After all, the Free State project seeks to build a conservative state by populating it to the extent that they can sway the legislative process in that state. Is that fundamentally any different from what liberals have been doing to places like Texas for years? It’s amazing how the left is willing to punish people who have committed no crime, and to enforce their own views on what proper political views should be by virtue of punishing those with which they disagree, but they are always the first to scream when they believe they are being oppressed. With a threatening slogan like “Liberty in Our Lifetime,” you can bet the left will punish Free-Staters at every turn.

Here’s to the Free-Staters! May they move to New Hampshire and paint the place red!

In the aftermath of the horrifying school shooting in Newtown, it was inevitable that leftists would use the opportunity to agitate for further limitations on the right to keep and bear arms. Before the day was over, the Marxist-in-Chief appeared to make a statement to the press, a man who is himself perpetually surrounded by a legion of armed guards, and his basic premise was laid out: This has to stop and he’s going after guns to do it. This is the typical reaction to these sorts of events, just as the last “Assault Weapons Ban” was passed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which exactly zero assault weapons were used by the bombers. This is a fraudulent approach to a problem, because it has nothing in fact to do with the issue at hand. Timothy McVeigh didn’t need assault weapons to murder Americans en masse, because the real problem is with individuals, but not with the implements. Knowing this, I have a serious question or two for politicians before they decide to infringe upon our rights. I want them to know what’s at stake, because taking such steps could do mortal damage to the country.

I’d like politicians to place themselves in law-abiding gun-owners’ shoes. Many are like me. I’m an Army veteran, and since returning to civilian life, I have never raised any of the weapons I own in the direction of another living soul. I maintain a number of firearms for defense of my home, my family, and my farm, against both human and non-human predators. Some of these would undoubtedly be classified “assault weapons” given the bizarre criteria of the last iteration of the legislation, but that hardly matters. I’m a law-abiding citizen, and I cannot imagine a scenario in which I would employ my guns for reckless, wanton purposes. That notion is with respect to the laws as currently written, however, new laws would leave us with a new problem should the politicians in Washington DC decide they must enact a ban on any of the weapons we already lawfully own, because if they believe that Americans are going to hand them over, they’re in for a bit of a disappointment. Why do politicians believe that law-abiding citizens should be punished for crimes they have not committed, and would never commit?

Many Americans will not yield their weapons. Will not. Got that? So, here’s the trouble: If by enacting a new law, people are made criminal by possession of weapons that had been perfectly legal, folks in Washington DC will be making a grave error in judgment. You see, I am a big believer in what I like to call “Mark’s nothing-left-to-lose” theory, which states that if you make a criminal of a person by legislative or regulatory fiat, a person who has really committed no crime and no tort, that person really has no further reason to obey any laws. Not gun laws. Not traffic laws. Not tax laws. Not drug laws. Not any law. I think there’s something tragic about the sort of thinking driving this gun-grabbing mentality in Washington DC, but I also believe it is intended to garner the worst possible result, and there are those who will cheer at the carnage that will be wrought. You see, they will claim the political shield of their alleged “good intentions,” but the truth is that they have none. They intend to wreck this Republic, and if we yield so much as an inch on this, they will have made another step in that direction.

I am certain there are those advocating such legislation who believe they’ll simply send out federal agents to collect all the guns and thereby enforce the laws, and if they have a few shoot-outs with those who may be unwilling to surrender their arms, so much the better to strengthen the propaganda case. After all, it won’t be the necks of the politicians that are on the lines, but federal agents who have been directed to enforce an immoral and reckless law. I pity them, because I know some number of them will doubtless be injured or worse, but also because I know some of them will disagree vehemently with this law, and away from work, they’ll be forced to live under it just like every other American. The rational thinkers among them might well refuse to carry such a law into execution, but sadly, the soft coercion of a paycheck is a mighty motivator.

There is also the social pressure, and it comes in the form of celebrities, media personalities and politicians making ridiculous comments about America and “its gun laws.” Take Piers Morgan, who has “threatened” self-deportation if America doesn’t change its gun laws. Apart from leftist dolts, I cannot imagine the mindset of anybody who thinks this is an effective tactic. Will anybody miss Piers Morgan? To me, this looks like an inducement to repeal some of the archaic restrictions on firearms ownership already on the books. Note to Mr. Morgan: If you’re going to “threaten” us, be sure the threatened action is something that we’d like to avoid. As it is, and as his ratings demonstrate, I think Mr. Morgan had better start packing his bags now.

I think the politicians aren’t quite seeing the whole picture in such a short-sighted view of how things under a ban-and-seizure procedure might go. It’s their operating assumption that the one-hundred million Americans who legally and safely own firearms will either hand in their guns at the appointed place and time, or if they resist, simply hunker down to await the aforementioned federal agents to show up for the obligatory stand-off and eventual surrender or massacre. The problem with this view is that I don’t think the bulk of that one-hundred million Americans who own guns are nearly so stupid or short-sighted as politicians seem to believe. The real question is whether politicians are so universally craven, and if they’re willing to convert millions of law-abiding Americans into criminals by post facto writ of law. Do they understand that for some number of Americans, this will truly amount to an act of war? Do they believe all armed citizens will simply go along quietly?

I doubt that all one-hundred million Americans are likely to be so docile, or so flat-footed. I suspect that if politicians enact such laws, or actually attempt to confiscate guns from Americans, there could be a rather different reaction based upon “Mark’s nothing-left-to-lose” hypothesis. You see, I could well imagine any number of gun owners who would look at their guns, the impending seizures, their shrinking liberties, and simply conclude that “today is the day for the second bloody revolution.” I suspect they would not be so slothful as to wait, huddling in their homes for hordes of better-armed and vastly more numerous federal agents to appear at their door. No, I believe that if such a thing were to be enacted, the bright line between liberty and tyranny will have been crossed, and at such a point, it may well become an open season, not on poor federal agents who are being directed to such idiocy, but on politicians, media, and other public persons who support such nonsense, breaching the peace with legislation, prompting American gun-owners to oppose such tyrannical actions, and to show up at their doors with notions other than peaceful discourse in mind.

Naturally, there are those leftists who actually hope such a scenario would arise, because it would permit their shill to declare martial law, and so on, but the problem comes in for all those supporters of such policies who do not have and will not have a legion of armed guards to protect them on the day Americans finally become pissed-off, or otherwise decide they have nothing left to lose. There exists a substantial number of Americans who simply will not yield to such a law. This is not Australia, and contrary to the thinking of those who may have been led to believe the same sort of approach could work in the US, whereby the government would ban guns and conducted a mass confiscation through a buyback program, most going along quietly, there are still far too many Americans who realize the simple truth that a government that would seize the weapons of law-abiding citizens is a tyrannical master, and no longer an obedient servant.

One imbecile suggesting total confiscation is the governor of New York, whose only actual claim to fame is that his father had been governor of that state, that Bill Clinton hired him for a cabinet post as a favor to his father, and he used his father’s name and connections to elevate him into high office. Andrew Cuomo called for confiscation, and here, Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin discuss the matter on FoxNews:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZcUoKaN_PM]

This is a dangerous time in which we live, made all the more dangerous by the imbecilic sloganeering of politicians bent upon an agenda of destruction. Guns really aren’t the problem, and they have never been the cause or source of violence. Instead, this is a problem of mostly insane individuals who do evil deeds. It’s a problem of people who are only loosely tied to reality or morality getting their hands on guns, or bombs, or airplanes. There isn’t enough banning and seizing to be done to combat all the evil actors on the planet, which is the reason that we must retain our rights to keep and bear arms. Some of those evil actors rise to power in governments, and occasionally, they too must be confronted with arms. It would be an awful lesson to repeat, if politicians foolishly insist on replaying it here, now, in the country that had been the world’s most free and prosperous. Taking away the right to keep and bear arms in any fashion isn’t an acceptable answer for a free people, and I pray a majority of our politicians know it. It’s not a lesson a free people should be compelled to re-teach.

Imagine that you’re enjoying your coffee at an Internet Cafe in Florida. Imagine that two armed thugs bust through the door, ordering people around, threatening their lives, and intent upon robbery. One is waving a gun, while the other is swinging a baseball bat. You are at the mercy of whatever comes next, because you are unarmed. This is a terrible situation for any person, and you are out of options if the thugs decide to open fire.

Now, imagine that among your fellow patrons, a 71-year-old man who is armed decides that he will not let himself or fellow patrons be victimized any longer. Samuel Williams is a hero. Thankfully, Mr. Williams does not live in Bloomberg’s New York, where he would have been prohibited from this courageous act.

Why do you have armed bodyguards? Why? Isn’t it “nonsensical” to believe they can protect you?

Or is it something else? Is it that you are worthy of self-defense, but we are not? That’s a mighty fine armored limousine you have, Mr. Mayor. Can the residents of New York get the same? No? You have bodyguards and police around you wherever you go. Can you offer the same assurances to all the New Yorkers who you forbid from arming themselves in their own defense? No.

I refrained from posting on Friday, because while there was a rush to politicize the shooting just past midnight on Thursday in Aurora, Colorado, I frankly wanted to leave it be for a day. Too many people in media were in too big a hurry to capitalize in some political fashion, and given the nature of the event, I must admit that I was spitting-mad. I was mad at the culture of the left, for trying to immediately leap in to make propagandist pronouncements, and I was mad at the right for failing to see that one must choose one’s battles wisely. The best thing for talking-heads to do on Friday was to shut the Hell up. Most of those on the right did precisely that, but we also had the obnoxious spectacle of Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempting to advance his political position on the matter of gun control. From the moment I heard Bloomberg’s comments, I became livid. It had been bad enough with the episode of Brian Ross trying to tag the Tea Party with guilt by association, but hearing Bloomberg on the radio spiked my blood pressure, and I did something unusual. I went off-clock, hopped in my car, drove to a wide-open space, and cursed all of these parasites at the top of my lungs. Finished, I returned to work, leaving my most vicious contempt with the wind, where none will hear of it.

Having given this a day to settle in me, and having afforded the dead and their survivors the barest modicum of the respect they deserve, I am prepared to state my case: These deaths needn’t have occurred, but it is the masterminds of the universe – characters like Mayor Bloomberg – whose preferred policies permit our people to be slaughtered by villains, defenseless in the face of mad-men.

Let me first state as a baseline of absolute clarity: One person is directly responsible for the deaths of and injuries to the victims in Aurora, Colorado. His name is James Holmes. He plotted this cruel massacre, he planned his actions, he armed himself with vicious intent, and he carried out the slaughter. He acted in cruel indifference to the liberties and lives of his fellow men, and for this crime, he must be tried and punished without remorse by the full fury of the instrument of Justice, wielding her sword without hesitation. He must be removed from the face of the Earth with the deliberate action of the state in the name of the people whose rights it is sworn to protect. Let us not discuss this part of the matter further, for there is no consolation or relief in it. I don’t care for his particular motive, whatever twisted excuses he might concoct, or others might raise on his behalf. He did it, and he must pay the only appropriate price.

Having covered the essentials facts relevant to the actor in this case, I now wish to deal with the generations of non-actors who demanded, through their intransigence, within their own sense of “moral” superiority, and from behind the fortress walls of the protected bubbles in which they live, that these victims be defenseless before the blazing guns of this mad-man. I wish now to address the man who presides over the City of New York like a King, dictating that salt be stricken from the menu, that soft-drinks be limited to sixteen ounces, and that no law-abiding citizen may easily obtain a gun for his own defense. There are many like him, and they are all equally guilty in abetting murder wherever law-abiding citizens have been deprived of the lawful ability to carry the means of their own defense. Even in jurisdictions where concealed handgun permits are available, business owners, acting within their rights as property owners, often restrict patrons from bringing their weapons on the premises, irrespective of permits. Patrons at least have a choice as to whether they shall frequent such establishments, yielding their ability to self-defense.

What none of the political opportunists will tell you is that in every state in which concealed-carry permits are authorized, the incidence of violent crime against persons has fallen precipitously. What none of these masterminds will tell you is that in all of the locales in which they have had their way, imposing gun control measures for their own nefarious purposes, these have become the deadliest cities in the country. Chicago, New York, and Washington DC have among the tightest gun control regulations in the country, but they also remain at or near the top the list of violent murders by all weapons, including guns. Once you have been armed with this knowledge, when Mayor Bloomberg addresses the media with his crass indifference to the murders committed under the shelter availed criminals by his sort of law, you should know that you are facing a man who is an accomplice, if not in the crime at hand in this case, then in others like it, numbering in the thousands, that draw little media attention because their victims number in ones and twos at a time, rather than in scores.

Do not tell me that we cannot know with certainty whether an armed citizen in the theater could have prevented some or all of this killing and maiming that visited this audience with gruesome indifference. We do know with certainty that none were armed in defense of their own lives, and that the killer was unmolested on his way in and out of the auditorium. What we also know, as Americans, but also as human beings in general, is that every person is entitled to defend his or her life, limb and liberty against brutal assault, but that none were able because they were faithfully abiding by rules that prohibited to them the instruments of their own possible salvation.

Make of it what you will, but every American ought to be outraged, as in instance after instance, killers seek out victims en masse, assembled for some peaceable, ordinary purpose, who are by virtue of the locale prohibited from their own defense. To those who would argue that the killer might have succeeded anyway, given his body armor, I ask, since it appears by virtue of his booby-trapped apartment that he had a particular desire to take out cops if he were killed, why did he not launch his attack at a police station? Why did he not attack people gathered at a practice range? Why not? He knew that the place he selected for attack was likely to be a weapons-free venue. Unless there had happened to be an off-duty cop, he was likely to commit his mass murder unopposed.

The shooting at Virginia Tech was the same. The gunman in that case struck where he could rampage unopposed, and it only ended when he decided to end it. Major Hasan, at Fort Hood, knew full well that under ordinary circumstances, on an Army installation, despite the arms-rooms full of weaponry and bunkers full of munitions, soldiers do not walk around armed, and when on those rare occasions they train under arms, they do so without ammunition on hand. A military base, should you penetrate its perimeter security, is a place where a shooter can rampage for some time without opposition, and Major Hasan was in the Army, so he knew this all too well. He did not launch his attack in a restaurant off-post, where he might well be able to kill service-members, but might also encounter an armed civilian. He knew his greatest chance of “success” in his spree of “work-place violence” would be where he would find legally disarmed victims.

More than two decades ago, when George Hennard rammed through the front of a Luby’s restaurant in Killeen, Texas, nearly within sight of the gates of the same Army post, he set in motion more than mass murder. One of the survivors of that attack, Suzanna Gratia Hupp, whose parents were both killed in the assault, fought to see the concealed-carry law enacted. She had a gun, but it was in her vehicle, as she did not wish to run afoul of the law, so she never carried it in her purse as she would have preferred. Testifying in passionate words before the legislature, she explained how if only she had possessed the slightest idea that this attack was imminent, she would have risked all the sanctions of law to have her parents back. Who would blame her? She would have operated on the basis of the old maxim: “Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six,” but she had no idea an attack was only moments away as she walked into the restaurant. Almost nobody ever does, except the killers.

We have seen these senseless acts of brutality enacted upon innocent people for too long to be mere bystanders caught up in the drama the media lays before us. We have been told for generations that if we only stripped guns from law-abiding persons, or limited the types of guns, or prohibited this feature or that, our world and our lives would be safer. It has never worked, and I don’t believe for one moment that the proponents of such laws believe it will have any effect, except perhaps to leave us defenseless against them. Let me tell you what I do believe is their real motive: They fear the day that we realize the treachery they’ve enacted, and that while they ride around in bullet-proof limousines that consume a gallon of gasoline in six miles because of their weight, and while they are escorted by well-armed bodyguards who are highly trained to react to any threat to their persons, and as they pontificate on the evil of guns upon which they rely to keep them safe, they have hypocritically, sanctimoniously argued that you should not be afforded the same privilege.

If you are part of the favored elite or privileged classes, whether a politician or celebrity, you will be afforded every exemption known to man, and you will be able to buy licensed private protection to care for your well-being. If you are a single mom, on your way home from work with your children, you will have no such privilege when a hooligan smashes your window at a stoplight, sticks a gun in your face, and does unspeakable harm to you and your family. If you are a retired school teacher, walking alone in the park, you will not have the benefit of such protection, or even the ability to defend your own person, outnumbered by multiple youthful attackers. If you’re a young man on a date with your girlfriend at the movies, you will not be given the chance to defend her from a villain, all because the masterminds have decided you’re a bigger liability than you are an asset, by whatever twisted calculus they apply to the lives of we “lesser” men. A father will be forbidden from wielding arms in defense of his children, because the geniuses have decided that there is an acceptable rate of loss to the inevitable mad-men who arise to commit heinous crimes against their fellow men.

Do you think the police can protect you? On Friday night in New York, a police officer was stationed at every movie theater in the city, to give the appearance of security and to defraud the prospective movie-goers of that city into believing they would be safe. Don’t go to the play, the musical, or the rock concert, because all the cops are occupied elsewhere. At this moment, the criminal element in New York is likely assessing the possibility of carrying out crimes at locations well away from movie theaters, knowing that the response times will be slower since the police are otherwise engaged. Do you think thugs don’t watch CNN or FoxNews? All around the country, cities are putting on a show of force at movie theaters, but that’s all it is: A show.

Ladies and gentlemen, we must no longer yield the means of our personal defense. We must not cede responsibility for our protection to the likes of Michael Bloomberg, who enjoys protection provided at taxpayers’ expense while we languish at the mercy of every would-be mass murder who would demonstrate that a “gun-free zone” is only gun-free so long as it is inhabited strictly by law-abiding citizens. Too often, these venues are the precise targets of choice for those who would do others harm. For once, as happened two decades ago here in Texas, the people of America should consider that rather than restricting the instrument on the basis of the preposterous notion that any one of us might lose our minds at any given moment, we ought again yield to the natural fact that none has a greater interest in or capacity for your defense than you. Not Mayor Bloomberg. Not even the most conscientious cop. You.

Editor’s note: I realize some will take offense at my remarks above, particularly with respect to the Mushmouth of New York. Tough. His maniacal launching of an attack on the 2nd Amendment in the wake of this tragedy earned him all the contempt reasonable people may wish to heap upon him, and certainly much more than I have mustered here. He and his cohorts who opportunistically utilize such circumstances to advance their anti-freedom agenda are a blight on this country, and I will offer such charlatans no quarter in my assessments.

As for the people of Aurora, Colorado, particularly those who have suffered directly the grievous loss and the trauma of this nightmarish event, you have the sympathies and support of every American of good will. When I have seen images from the scene, of first responders, health-care workers, and members of the community who have reached out to help their fellows in a time of despair, I am heartened by what are the inestimable good graces of so many fine people rendering all the aid they are able. On this website, I often focus on the doom and gloom in which so much of our world seems to have become cloaked, but this day, in Aurora Colorado, while I see a grim tragedy, I also see reason for hope, not in some shoddy politician offering slogans, but in the actions and the fraternal love I see among the people there. When I am asked why I am proud to be an American, it is because such people as these give light and love to our country even in its darkest hours, when it would be easier to simply turn it all off in order to avoid the horror. I recently explained that I had been searching for America, and in the finest devotion to purpose, and in the greatest tradition of American spirit I’ve seen in a community wracked by terror, I have found her, and she is still thriving. May those souls be at peace, and may America take their survivors into the bosom of her fullest compassion.

Many of you will have noticed the oddity over the last week in which Bill Clinton both defended Mitt Romney, and seemed to disagree publicly with President Obama. Dick Morris raced out to tell the world that he believes Clinton wants Obama to lose, but there are a few problems with that idea. Clinton isn’t really the sort of guy on whom conservatives should hang their hopes. If they cite him as an authority for the purposes of a tax cut argument, what will they do when the former President returns to previous positions(and he already has) arguing in favor of higher taxes? There are conspiracy theories circulating on this subject, and nearly all of them end with Barack Obama losing to Mitt Romney because Bill Clinton will “spike the election.” I believe Clinton would undercut Obama if it served his ends, but the question must be: Does it? Perhaps worse, I think some Republicans are falling too easily into citing the impeached serial liar as some sort of authority on economic policy.

Let us remember who it is we’re referencing when we talk about Bill Clinton. He’s the guy who tried to let his wife ram a healthcare plan down our throats. He’s the guy who promised to feel our pain, but instead spent most of his two terms feeling-up interns and other “targets of opportunity.” This is the guy who ignored Al-Qaeda, and who missed vital opportunities to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11. This is the wretched man who turned over the Department of Justice to Janet Reno, who in turn turned over much of the day to day operations to one Eric Holder, now serving as the Attorney General. He has a history of cover-ups that began well in advance of Fast&Furious, stretching back to the Waco operation. Bill Clinton was also the guy who blamed the Oklahoma City bombing on Rush Limbaugh, and who couldn’t wait to use the legislative impetus provided by the act of domestic terrorism to enact a nonsensical “assault weapons ban.”

Bill Clinton was the President who helped to created the Housing bubble from which we are still suffering, and he is the goon who lied endlessly, along with his willing accomplices in the lamestream media about the intentions and ultimate effects of the budget the Republicans tried to put through in 1995-6. He lied endlessly about Newt Gingrich, and the Republican Congress, and he sent his favorite congressional hatchet-man, David Bonior(D-MI,) to do his dirty work. He lied to a grand jury under oath, and only the malingering of a federal judge prevented him from facing a criminal rather than civil perjury charge. These are merely some of the highlights of his “esteemed” career in the oval office, or the anteroom in which he caroused with interns, and he lied repeatedly to the American people, waggling a finger, and chastising the people who would even dare to ask him such questions.

I offer this brief refresher up because it seems that some Republicans are gleefully referencing the Slickster’s remarks on the basis that he speaks with some authority. He has no credibility. When Clinton pointed out that he had balanced four budgets, I only saw one Republican politician willing to point out that Newt Gingrich had a substantial role in all of that: Sarah Palin. Still, it was a bit bothersome to see so many Republican rush out to refer to a guy who they ought not use as a benchmark for anything, budgetary or otherwise. The simple fact is that Clinton is and always has been out for Clinton, and while it’s true that his wife is the hardcore leftist ideologue in the family, it is also true that Clinton is himself a leftist, albeit a somewhat more malleable one. It was Clinton who insisted on referring to taxes as “contributions” or “investments in America,” if you’ll recall, so I would just as soon cease the Clinton-worship now. Still, his behavior seems curious to political observers, because it seems to clearly undermine Barack Obama. Why would Clinton do that?

I suspect that if that were his true aim, it could only have one or two possible objectives, and both end with Hillary occupying the Oval office. After all, if Obama is damaged enough, maybe he follows Doug Schoen’s advice and steps aside, leaving the Democrat convention open to somebody else, or if Obama loses in November to Mitt Romney, perhaps there’s a shot for Hillary in 2016. On the other hand, one could conclude that both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham are Soros-shills, and that this may be part of a plan to replace Obama on the ticket with his Secretary of State should Soros find it necessary to pull the plug on a weakened Obama. Of course, these theories and all of the myriad permutations of them require that we assume that Clinton wants to undermine Obama, but is that the case, or are Republicans being sand-bagged by the Slickster[again?]

As of Wednesday, both Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader McConnell made statements referencing Bill Clinton’s remarks, and it leaves one to wonder if the pair aren’t being led down the garden path by the former cigar-aficionado-in-chief. When one considers the possibilities, one must always remember that despite any differences among them, the Obamas and Clintons are leftists, and if there’s anything they can unite on, it’s defeating conservatives. It’s probably true that the former president never quite got over Obama’s playing of the race card in 2008, and it’s probably true that Hillary views the Obama administration as a bunch of amateurs, but what of it? After all, Hillary’s record both in the Senate and in her current job aren’t exactly glistening examples of effectiveness, and while her husband is often given credit for the economic conditions of the 1990s, it’s important to note that it was the conservative insurgence in Congress that actually had built the conditions to the degree we had some fairly prosperous years.

Whether Bill Clinton is actually out to undermine Barack Obama, or is merely playing a game of cat and mouse with Republicans, I don’t think conservatives should fall into the trap of believing that Clinton would be doing much better or much different if he were in office today. Bill Clinton’s administration is not a model of good governance to which we should turn for reference. On the other hand, the active and aggressive Congress led by Newt Gingrich that put the brakes on Clinton’s escapades, and restrained the growth of government for the first time in my life is something we should reference, and while Bill Clinton poses as the elder statesman in his party, the simple fact is that if he had gotten his way, unopposed, through 1994-96, he’d be remembered with every bit as much doubt as Barack Obama faces in the electorate now, and we conservatives would do right by history as well as the political debate in this country to remember it that way.

Senator Charles Schumer(D-NY) should be ejected from office, not merely by his fellow New Yorkers, but by the whole body of the Senate. The trouble is, we’d need to eject more than “Chuck the Schmuck” in in order to effect such change. Today, “Schmucky” introduced a law aimed at punishing people who renounce their citizenship in order to avoid taxation, and forbids them from ever returning, even as visitors. This communist political hack from New York actually believes the problem is that guys like Eduardo Saverin leave the country, but not the fact that the confiscatory levels of taxation levied against Americans in this disastrous Obama economy drives them away. Saverin renounced his US citizenship and lives in Singapore, and Schumer isn’t happy about it, since it means the government will not collect taxes from people like Saverin on investment income such as the Facebook IPO scheduled for tomorrow. It’s like living in a time warp. The law that Senator Schumer and his pal Bob Casey(D-PA) have introduced has precedent, although not in this country. No, the bodies of law to which you must make reference in order to find a precedent are places like the former Soviet Union.

Schumer is a leftist troll, but he’s more dangerous than his superficial antics reveal. Schumer is the quintessential NY politician, meaning he is a barely-disguised communist. How long until this malevolent weasel decides to erect a physical wall, not to keep immigrants out as you might suppose, but instead to prevent people from leaving? This law is merely the first logical step on that path, and if you don’t recognize it as such, you’ve forgotten history, and what it makes clear: As communists and their socialist friends (not a dime’s worth of difference, in fact) begin to break a country down, first those with money, and then those with brains and ability, tend to flee. They ultimately seek to stop the bleeding by such draconian measures, aimed at using the law as a restraint. It’s their best attempt at keeping such people in the bonds of servitude to their disgusting slave-states. It isn’t as though this will stop the bleeding, but you see, that fact will become the impetus, the casus belli for the ongoing class warfare they will escalate. No matter how it starts, it always ends in physical restraints.

I suppose there are those who might ask why it is that I feel any sympathy for Saverin, or those like him, since they are, after all, abandoning the United States. For those who think this way, I must ask: Isn’t the United States abandoning them? This was the nation in which one might have made a fortune and reaped a benefit, but willingly paid one’s taxes, but that time is over. To be quite frank about it, if you raise my federal income taxes to nearly 40%, I’m going to leave too, and I will change the name of this site to MarkAmericaInExile.com. The simple fact is that such a level of taxation is obscene and immoral. There is no moral justification possible for taxing one citizen’s earnings at a different rate than another citizen’s income, and yet this has become the accepted norm since we adopted the progressive income tax early last century.

The progressive income tax is a notion right out of the mind of Karl Marx, and the very idea that Schumer is putting forward is that not only are you forbidden to keep the money you’ve earned, but that if you renounce your citizenship and he can in some way substantiate the fact that you’ve done so to avoid taxes, you must be punished. I think Chuck Schumer should be punished. I think if you introduce an openly communist law in the United States Congress, you should be thrown out of that body, placed on an airplane, and sent to live in Havana with that breathing corpse named Fidel. The problem we have in this country is not that we have too many rich people fleeing the overbearing taxes, but that we have such outrageous taxation at all. I’m not a wealthy guy, by any stretch of the imagination, but I know that excrement rolls down hill, and I also know that there’s somebody with less than I might have, who will look at me with the same malignantly covetous eyes that Schmucky and his gaggle of communist pals leer at Eduardo Saverin. No matter how poor you might consider yourself to be, there is always somebody in worse condition looking at you as though you’re a “fat-cat.” Always.

Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no point belaboring the issue. Chuck Schumer is a disgrace to the United States, and if the people of New York weren’t ruled by a majority of like-minded commies, they would toss him out. Sadly, we’re stuck with this clown until he has his own twitter moment, or something along those lines, because there is no level of communism the majority of voters in that state will not endorse. After all, they win, don’t they? I have serious doubts as to whether this bill will make it over to the House, but if it does, I wonder what it will take for Boehner and the boys over in the House to surrender and go along. Every last damned American ought to be outraged by this proposal of Schumer’s, but sadly, we now live in a country ripe for demagoguery of the sort Schumer is practicing. At least he’s fully in the open now, because with this proposal, Schumer has moved from the rabid leftist column directly into the Stalinist column. This must have been what it was like to live in Russia a century ago, as they agitated against the Tsars and the “merchant class.” Most of those poor ignorant bastards had no idea with whom they had climbed into bed.

Isn’t it odd that the Democrats have been pushing this contraception theme as the means by which to derail the heated issue over the Obamacare mandate on religious institutions as a breech of their religious freedoms, and just as Rush Limbaugh stepped into the well-laid snare, the trap was sprung with a ferocity that no talk-show host should warrant, who should rise to the top but Sandra Fluke, 30 year-old Georgetown University law-school student and radical feminist advocate to catch Limbaugh off guard. I think Rush is a target of opportunity, because I believe they were hoping Rick Santorum would get caught up in all of this. Having failed to ensnare any of the Republican presidential hopefuls, but having managed to catch the big radio voice they would most like to destroy, they seized upon the opportunity to attack Limbaugh for his imprudent use of the words “prostitute” and “slut.”

Fluke isn’t the innocent she’s been portrayed as having been. She’s been presented as a bit of a patsy, and a well-meaning young woman, and all of that, but the truth is that Fluke has been a radical activist for years. In fact, her entire rationale for enrolling at Georgetown University was to try to force this fight. She’s not some poor, helpless student who was set upon by big mean Rush Limbaugh. By all reports, she’s a coldly-calculating left-wing conniver who is actively pursuing the goal to compel colleges and other religious institutions to cover not only contraception, but also gender reassignment surgery for transgendered people. That’s right, Ms. Fluke is hardly some wide-eyed victim of the evil right-wing and other alleged woman-haters. Here’s an excerpt of the article at TheCollegePolitico:

The title of the article, which can be purchased in full here, is Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons and was published in the Journal’s 2011 Annual Review. I have posted a transcript of the section I will be quoting from here. In a subsection of the article entitled “Employment Discrimination in Provision of Employment Benefits” starting on page 635 of the review Sandra Fluke and her co-editor describe two forms of discrimination in benefits they believe LGBTQ individuals face in the work place:

To be clear, the argument here is that employers are engaging in discrimination against their employees who want them to pay for their sex changes because their “heterosexist” health insurance policies don’t believe sex changes are medically necessary.

Additionally Sandra Fluke and her co-editor have an answer for why exactly these “heterosexist” insurance policies, and the courts that side with them, deem sex changes as medically unnecessary:

In Mario v. P & C Food Markets, Inc., an employee who was denied such coverage brought claims under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security (ERISA) and Title VII. The court rejected the ERISA claim, finding the plaintiff’s mastectomy and hormone therapy were not medically necessary. The court’s ruling was based upon controversy within the medical community regarding that treatment plan. Much of that controversy has been linked to ignorance and bias against transgender persons, and the American Medical Association has declared the lack of coverage to be discrimination.

You see, all opposition to the determination that sex changes are medically necessary, and therefor must be covered by private employer provided health insurance, is based on “ignorance and bias against transgender persons”.

This gets more absurd, as she appeared Monday on The View with the gaggle of gawking leftists(minus Elizabeth Hasselbeck, who is probably moderately conservative at best.) Fluke rejected Limbaugh’s apology, as read in part by Barbara Walters, and when asked about Rush Limbaugh, launched into another thing and made a website recommendation. Guess which one? (It’s at around the 1:03 mark in the video)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIg18I1bAD0]

Barbara Walters went out of her way to mention that this isn’t about tax-payer money, and this is somewhat true, but in fact, it’s much worse than this: It’s about compelling religious institutions to pay for coverages that are contrary to their deeply held religious views. As bad as it would be if Fluke were merely demanding public money, what she’s actually demanding is that the First Amendment rights of religious institutions be over-ridden by her demands. She’s worse than a welfare moocher for contraception: She’s a full-on tyrant who doesn’t give a damn for the rights of people and institutions that will be compelled at gunpoint to provide this coverage. In my view, this doesn’t make the case for Fluke, but merely damns her all the more.

Her recommendation of Media Matters as a source for information is troubling, because what this reveals is a hardcore radical-left activist and advocate bent on an agenda. The longer this goes on, the more thoroughly I’ve become convinced that it’s a lefty set-up al the way, and that unsuspecting Rush Limbaugh ran headlong into it merely means this was engineered at the highest levels. As it turns out of course, the testimony happened with Minority Leader(and former Speaker) Nancy Pelosi presiding, while Obama’s administration was pushing this desperately as they were beginning to lose ground in the polls due to the controversy over their violation of the protections of the free exercise of religion.

Now comes word that a push is ongoing in the Senate to get Rush Limbaugh off the radio altogether, and the White House has posted a link to a petition to get Limbaugh off of Armed Forces Radio, while political hack Steny Hoyer(D-MD,) runs around talking up the possibility of Fluke filing suit against Limbaugh. I doubt such a suit would ever occur, because as Mark Levin pointed out on his show Monday evening, this would open up the matter of discovery, and soon we would find out all the details of Ms. Fluke’s personal life. I can imagine attorneys asking things like:

“Have you ever participated in the events known widely as “slut-walks?”

Of course, nobody knows the full details about Ms. Fluke’s life, never mind whether she’s ever participated in such an event, but that is the way she and the White House would probably like to keep it, because it would cause great harm to this little storm they have swirling around Rush Limbaugh, and it’s for this reason that I doubt she’d file suit. By testifying before Congress, she’s entered into the realm of public persons by her own volition. The standards there would be much higher, and she’d be hard-pressed to show that Limbaugh’s questions, little more than opinions, were anything more than any of the millions of other opinions issuing forth about public personae each and every day in media. In short, she’d probably lose, and for her trouble, would be placed into the position of having to air her own laundry, however clean or dirty it might be.

One thing is certain about Fluke: She’s not the poor little school-girl the media has made her out to be, and while Limbaugh probably shouldn’t have used the words he did, it’s clear to me that the left is using this to gin up another false narrative, and more, they’re continuing to push the notion that some alleged entitlement to contraception trumps religious liberties. It’s a lie, it’s a sham, and if they expect me to forget this, they’re wrong. Oh, and don’t expect me to abandon Limbaugh to the leftist hyenas. I’m not like those weak-kneed Republicans last seen running for the tall grass. Not a chance.

“What can one do?” Clearly, that list is far more extensive than the more important one: “What should one do?” I can this moment walk into my kitchen, find a fork, and jam it into my forehead. I can do all sorts or self-destructive things, but the question isn’t a matter of what I can do, but instead what I should do. Knowing this difference is something we hope to teach to our children with enough clarity and just enough severity that they understand the distinction. It is a lesson far too many seem to forgo on their passage from childhood into adulthood. More often than not, those who do so become annoyed when you point it out. They say in childishly obstinate petulance that “it’s my life(or my body) and I can do what I want.” My question for those who hold this view of life is ever: If nobody doubts that you can do a thing, why do you hold no doubts about whether you should do it? This question is at the root of a deep cultural divide, and it thoroughly explains the collapse of our country.

Governments can do almost anything at all, particularly with the popular support of their people. Does this mean a government should do anything at all? It is not inconceivable that one could form a majority coalition that would demand that we eat the rich. Literally. We can do that, but the question remains: Should we? We could create any number of similar political majorities that would propose equally obnoxious ideas, and seek to implement them in law. Should we? Great disasters in human death tolls made by other men have been carried out on the basis of the idea that since a thing can be accomplished, that it necessarily should be done, but the truth is that ‘should’ doesn’t necessarily follow ‘can.’

Our constitution laid out fairly well-defined parameters for what government can do, but more importantly, our framers laid out well-debated conclusions about what our government should do. Their example was seen in the first few administrations, during which time government did do very little. Over time, this tendency to forget “should” and begin implementing “can” eventually gave us a government that is doing almost all it conceivably can, but does very poorly at the few things it should. Defense? Obama is slashing that, including our critical nuclear deterrence capacity. Law enforcement? That’s not something on which he spends a great deal of effort, although regulatory enforcement is now off the hook, with federal inspectors actually looking through pre-schoolers’ lunch bags.

The litany of things government can do is exhausting, and in fact, virtually infinite. Governments can compel people to buy health insurance, or pay for their neighbors’ lunches, or almost anything you can imagine. The things governments will do is supposed to be restrained, however, by the notions of what it should do, because in deciding what it should do, you’re also defining what it should not. That was the point of the founders, and the limited government they designed told us what government should do, and in so framing it, they also made clear what government shouldn’t do. Yes, they took the time to include a few things that government mustn’t do, but under the auspices of expanding what it can do, they’re now ignoring these limits too. The proposition that government can require insurers to provide free contraceptive solutions comes at the expense of a thing government mustn’t do, which is to interfere in the matters of exercise of religion.

This is what you ultimately find when you consider only the question of what government can do, because it no longer pays respects to the limitations formerly provided by the things it should not do, or must not do. “Should” is a matter of some debate, but it is one leftists seek to avoid. If you want simple proof of concept, I ask you only to think back to 2008, when Barack Obama was seeking the office of President, promising hope and change. He spoke at length about the things that he would do as President, and in rallying his mind-numbed disciples, he exhorted them with cries of “Yes, we can!”

Some of you who have been reading my blog from its inception will remember the story of Governor Beverly Perdue(D-NC,) who allegedly joked(while not seeming to be joking) that we should suspend elections so that Government could continue until the economy was straightened out. I kid you not. If you weren’t a reader of this blog at the time, you may not know what controversy this caused. In any case, it no longer matters, because now, Politico is reporting that facing the probability of a drubbing in the upcoming campaign, Perdue has said she will not seek re-election. No wonder she wanted to suspend elections. She was merely looking down the road and drawing the conclusion that she would be better off if she didn’t need to face the voters of her state.

Governor Chris “Krispy Kreme” Christie repeated the dishonest line about former House Speaker Newt Gingrich being chased out of office due to ethics violations, and that he had been forced to pay a fine, in his Meet The Press interview Sunday. Let me state this unambiguously to any who may have been fooled by this line: Chris Christie is lying. Period. The truth of the matter that Chris Christie won’t tell you is that David Bonior, once the Democrat Whip in the House, filed charge after charge as a matter of creating a nuisance. The Democrats knew that Gingrich was not particularly wealthy compared to many members, and that they could bankrupt him in legal expenses. This was their way of hounding him from the Speakership, but it was ultimately his own party that did him dirty out of fears they couldn’t explain this to voters. As Christie sits there gulping air and spewing garbage, you might want to consider his ethical lapses, flitting around as he does at tax-payers’ expense to attend his son’s ballgames.

I’m not going to suggest to you that Newt Gingrich is a perfect human being, or anything approaching it, but just as when I defended Governor Romney on the matter of capitalism and Bain Capital, I am going to tell you the truth. The facts are clear: Bonior and the Democrats conducted a campaign of phony ethics claims against Gingrich in order to tie him up legislatively, undermine his moral authority as Speaker, and to drive him deeply into debt. The ‘settlement’ reached was essentially aimed at putting it to bed so he could get on with his life. This should sound particularly familiar to those of you who have followed the attacks on Sarah Palin near the end of her term as Governor. Gingrich was almost a prototype for what was later done to Palin.

Chris Christie sits there pompously talking about this information as if there is more to the story he’s suppressing by way of doing you a favor, and there is more, but his concealing it wasn’t intended to do you any favors. The fact is that the sole charge that wasn’t tossed by the ethics committee was investigated by the IRS and in 1999, they concluded there had been no wrong-doing on Gingrich’s part. Of course, that story got little or no play in most media outlets, and the humpty-dumpty donut-horker in New Jersey wouldn’t want to “regale” you with that.

Of course, there are a number of things ‘Krispy Kreme’ hasn’t told you, including what Palin revealed on Monday night’s Hannity show, where she mentioned an episode in which the New Jersey governor used a state helicopter to attend his son’s ballgame. The point is that while this man goes on about Gingrich, but omits all the important facts, he’s out there doing things that I consider entirely unethical. I suppose he simply forgot those things. This line of attack by Romney’s New Jersey surrogate is dishonest, and they know it, but then again, they’re now desperate. Nobody should be surprised.

Mark Levin covered this story on his show Monday evening, and you should hear his take on it. He gets it exactly right:

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Of all the people in the Republican party who annoy me, none make my stomach turn more violently than Senator Lindsey “Camera-Fiend” Graham, (R-SC.) Rush Limbaugh likes to refer to him as “Lindesy Grahamnesty,” which is fitting given his support of various forms of amnesty for illegal immigrants. He’s constantly at odds with the conservative base of the party, but he still manages to get elected. In an article on RealClearPolitics about Romney’s opponents for the GOP nomination seeking to highlight the dishonesty of the “electability” argument, Graham is quoted as having said that a Romney victory in his state would wrap up the nomination:

“I think it should be over,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “I’d hope the party would rally around him,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

I think Graham’s career as a guest on so-called news shows should be over, but I’m not getting my way on that, either. As usual, Graham is wrong. Why should three states amount to an end of the process? It’s not as though they’re large states, and it’s not as though winning would give Romney anything near the number of delegates he needs to clinch the nomination. Why is Graham in such a rush? Why is the entire establishment of the GOP in such a rush to hold the coronation for Mitt Romney? Maybe Graham is just looking for new funding sources.

This is another absurd bit of prospective interference by government in the market, once again under the umbrella of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and again put forward in such a manner as to defy all logic. At this point, it’s still just a discussion letter, but by now, you should realize that once the government begins to openly discuss an idea, t’s only a matter of time before they cram it down our throats. I realize there are those who support the existence of the ADA, but frankly, I am not one of them, primarily because I have seen too many scam artists who avail themselves of the protections of such a law when no reasonable person would ever conclude they were “disabled” or otherwise honestly in need of the protections of such law. Do we really need government to be making these decisions?

These things always devolve into a scam. Always. In this case, what they’re discussing is whether an employer requiring a High School Diploma as a screening criteria might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, if they had been prevented from graduating High School because they had some learning disability covered under the act. In the long run, I can see it being used by ne’er-do-wells who failed to finish high school as the means to bypass ordinary educational requirements. I can see it already: “I didn’t graduate because I had a learning disability.“ “Really, what was your learning disability?” “I had an obsessive compulsive disorder that caused me to play hooky a lot, but you can’t ask me that.”

Yes, this is real. Yes, this is actually under discussion. If I’m asking you for a High School diploma for a ditch-digging job, it’s because I’m going to need you to fill out all those lovely government forms before you can start. Seriously. If you cannot complete High School due to a learning disability, or because you were simply a ne’er-do-well, what on earth makes you think you’re entitled to be considered for a job that requires much beyond basic manual labor? What the EEOC is discussing is whether a High School diploma requirement is an unfair tool of discrimination. Have you talked to some of the people who manage to graduate high school these days? At the current rate of depreciation of educational diplomas, one might want to ask for a doctorate before hiring somebody to flip burgers. Call them “Hygienic Food Preparation Engineers.” I probably shouldn’t make light of this, but I’m shocked at how ridiculous this has become.

I know that’s not fair to the bulk of High School graduates who earn their diplomas, but I’m not really talking about them. More specifically, I mean some of the blooming morons who manage to complete High School. The education system manages to pass through some people who it seems couldn’t complete middle school, much less high school, but then again, a high school diploma may signify more than simple learning. It also says something about one’s basic willingness to comply with and conform to standards and rules, or at least it did in my day.

At my current day job, we screen out applicants for the entry-level positions on the basis of many things, and among them is the High School Diploma or GED. Those new employees spend the first 4-6 weeks training full time before ever performing the actual job, because it’s specialized and requires the ability to rapidly gather information from many sources, manage multiple computers, redistribute that information rapidly, and follow very precise standards. Even with the requirements, we have a 60% failure rate among trainees. Why? Clearly, it’s because many of the trainees don’t measure up on the simpler things, like showing up on time, or following directions, or relatively simple procedural performance measures. One of the things we have seen over time is that those with GEDs are less likely to arrive on time, and follow conventions and norms, to the point that we have looked at simply saying GEDs need not apply, because their failure rate is greater than the average, and since we spend so much time and money training, it doesn’t make sense to pour it down a bottomless pit.

Based on what I know, I cannot imagine the case in which a learning disability that had prevented somebody from obtaining a High School diploma wouldn’t similarly prohibit them from performing the functions of these jobs in my organization. More than that, however, I know how my organization is apt to respond to such a ruling if it were to effectively become the new regulatory norm: They would spend hours amending their job requirements to rule out anybody who could not demonstrate the same level of competency without ever referencing a High School Diploma. They will merely make it exhaustively clear that to successfully maintain employment in that job will require certain skills for which “high school diploma” has always been an effective short-hand.

Sure, Human Resources will spend time and effort on it, making sure we’ve complied in every way with the letter of the law, but the fact is that we already comply with its spirit. Of course, we’re not a small business, but can you imagine this sort of thing being applied to them? They don’t have staff devoted to these sorts of things, never mind an HR department. This is the sort of preposterous, confounding, job-killing regulation for which the government has no actual justification, except to make work for those who are engaged in these sorts of ‘discussion letters.’ Which brings me to my conclusion: In further Job Openings at the EEOC, they should include a line in their criteria that states “Those possessing common sense need not apply.”

Effective at midnight, certain types of light-bulbs will be against the law. 100-watt incandescent light-bulbs are the first to be phased out due to a miserably wretched piece of legislation passed in 2007. It’s true that Republicans managed to place a provision into a recent bill that would de-fund enforcement through September 2012, but the fact is that most manufacturers and retailers will comply, not wishing to risk being outside the law. That’s right: 100 watt incandescent bulbs of the sort we’ve been using for decades are going away, and if you don’t like it, you can thank the Democrat Congress of 2007 and and of course President George W. Bush, the “compassionate conservative” who signed this idiocy into law. Hurrah for compassion! Hurrah for government regulation! Hurrah for George W. Bush! If you’re not happy about this, you’ve got just a few more hours depending on your timezone.

The other alternative is the LED bulbs, but they’re outrageously expensive, and I’ve not figured out how to finance a house-full of them. Perhaps a second mortgage? The other problem is that my only experience with them is not a good deal more positive in terms of the light emitted, but I’ve decided that as a practical matter, I have no intention of being an early adopter of the technology because it’s fantastically outside my budgetary constraints. Of course, neither the Democrat Congress of 2007-2011 was the least bit worried about budgetary constraints as shown by the growth of our federal budget, and it doesn’t seem that either the compassionately conservative Mr. Bush or the fantastically radical Mr. Obama had any concerns about the effects of this law on working stiffs.

It is for this reason that I have decided not to participate in this ban, and in order to do so, I’ve been stock-piling. At an average usage of one bulb per month, I now have enough to last should I live to be 100 years old. (I won’t last that long, of course, but I want to have some put back for my heirs.) My message to the Democrat Congress of 2007-2011 and to Presidents Bush and Obama is simply: “You’re not the boss of me.”

Of course, the thoughtful will have noticed that there exists no similar measure one can adopt to protect one’s future health-care from the mandate that will be Obamacare, at least not for working stiffs. Fortunately for them, neither the Democrat Congress of 2010 nor President Obama will suffer those limitations. After all, they have you to pay their bills, light their corridors, and dispose of their toxic bulbs.

Hurry on down to your local big-box store and buy up such 100-watt bulbs as you can still find. They’re going away, and you have nothing but the compassion of big government liberals of both parties to thank!

Sunday, in an interview by Christiane Amanpour on ABC’s This Week, Colin Powell was led into answering questions by Amanpour, and these were the sort of puff questions that suggest the interviewer knew the interviewee’s answer, and was merely a propaganda attack on the Tea Party. Powell has always been a DC insider since being a National Security Adviser in the Reagan Administration, and his elevation to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was seen by many as a cynical bit of affirmative action by George H.W. Bush. In his service as Secretary of State under George W. Bush, Powell repeatedly demonstrated his elitist tendencies but also his commitment to the progressive movement. His endorsement of Barack Obama in the eleventh hour of the 2008 campaign season was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of his relationship with conservatives. This statement suggests the antipathy runs both ways:

“They compromised — the Founding Fathers compromised on slavery. They had to in order to create a country. They compromised on the composition of the Senate, of the House, of the Supreme Court, of a president — what are the president’s powers? Can you imagine more difficult compromises today?”

“Compromise is how this country was founded, and unless two people in disagreement with each other don’t find a way to reach out to one another and make compromises, you don’t get a consensus that allows you to move forward.”

“But the Tea Party point of view of no compromise whatsoever is not a point of view that will eventually produce a presidential candidate who will win.”

This is nonsense. The founders compromised on the issue of slavery, and we are still dealing with the blow-back. This nation engaged in its deadliest war because they compromised on that issue. Abraham Lincoln did not compromise on the issue. The founders may have compromised in formulating the structures of our government, but they did not compromise in whether we should have our own country, or Colin Powell would never have been Secretary of State, or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the United States, since it wouldn’t exist. This is the sort of half-witted, dishonest argument I have come to expect from Powell. He’s an establishment hack who serves himself, and official Washington DC, but not the nation at large.

The other thing concealed by Powell’s attack on the Tea Party is the question: If the Tea Party is supposed to compromise, with whom is that compromise to be made? It’s not surprising that Powell doesn’t indicate who that might be. Compromises are made between entities. If Tea Party is one entity, who is the other? This is typical Washington-speak, because if Powell was really interested in seeing the Tea Party compromise on an issue, he’d tell you which issues, and with whom. Instead, he’s simply hurling insults. Sadly, instead of providing something constructive, Powell simply laments the uncompromising nature of the Tea Party.

With whom has Powell compromised? He’s not willing to compromise with anybody, having secured his lifestyle as part of the establishment. He’s not willing to see the DC establishment give any ground to the American people. I might have been willing to accept his arguments if he’d shown even the first indication of honesty in his arguments, but as is all too clear, Powell simply wanted to smear the Tea Party. Amanpour was only too happy to give him the opportunity. If, as Douglas MacAurthur reminds us, “old soldiers never die, they just fade away,” I think conservative Americans will be just as happy if Powell begins to fade sooner rather than later. Until he learns to speak honestly on politics, he’s not performing a service for the American people, a thought that prompts me to wonder: Other than vanity, whose interests is he serving?

This is absurd. Speaker John Boehner is now behind a move to bring a “clean” Balanced Budget Amendment to a vote in the House of Representatives. The Amendment in question would provide no protections against runaway government, or limit the ability of Congress to raise taxes. Roll Call is reporting that the Republican leadership is willing to consider the weakened, unrestricted version of the amendment in what will surely be the most ridiculous act of self-defeat in a long string of them by this House Leadership. The Democrats like the “clean bill” because it’s going to present a huge “get out of jail free card” for them. In the form that is now under consideration, the Amendment would serve as a club over the head of people who wish to reduce the size and scope of government. It’s another pathetic surrender, and it’s not acceptable.

What’s at stake is this: The amendment now under consideration is stripped of any requirements to cut spending or limit taxation. Under this so-called “clean” version of the bill, if Congress wished to spend 100% of our GDP, the proposed amendment would permit it, and permit or even require that Congress raise taxes to support it. In short, this proposal is a national suicide pact. Earlier this week, 31 conservative organizations signed a letter published by Americans for Tax Reform to John Boehner insisting on the stronger restrictions. From the letter:

“Unless tax hikes are taken off the table, reckless lawmakers will increase taxes to pay for these new bloated spending levels, rather than bring spending in line with revenues. A ‘clean’ BBA provides the excuse big spenders seek to raise taxes and grow government,”

“Any lawmaker committed to restoring American solvency cannot seriously vote for a BBA that does not include a super-majority requirement for tax increases,”

It’s not surprising that John Boehner would seek to do this for the sake of political expedience, but what is shocking about this is that it will undoubtedly be used to either punish the entire economy, or to politically attack Republicans. Let me explain the way in which it will be used for the latter purpose, since the former is self-explanatory. What will happen is that a number of House Conservatives will revolt against party leadership over this(and they had damned-well better,) but this will mean the Amendment will go down to defeat, and this will enable Democrats to say “We voted for a BBA, but Republicans obstructed it.” The details and the truth won’t matter. The President will claim: “See, we tried to get a Balanced Budget Amendment, but those darned Republicans stopped it.”

The way to prevent a disaster is to introduce the stronger version of the Amendment. This means it may go down to defeat, but if it does, it will have been defeated with Democrats’ votes. That would flip the narrative, and place the burden of defending a bad position on Democrats. What Boehner’s surrender promises us is a complete disaster of unrestricted tax increases, or the loss of the House majority, or both. Boehner isn’t fit to lead. He doesn’t understand the concept. He’s a deal-making, arm-twisting surrender monkey, and if the GOP majority survives this disastrous leadership for another two years, it will have been a miracle, but Boehner must go. Cantor isn’t looking any better.